A Consciousness Consideration for UFO Sightings – Syracuse New Times

Cheryl Costa tackles the problem of certain UFO sightings in which the extraordinary phenomenon is perceived for a short period of time, only to apparently “wink out,” leaving the witness doubly mystified. Costa suggests this “flash perception” occurs in an altered state of consciousness, in which our reality perception widens enough to see something that is real but that we wouldn’t be attuned to seeing under normal circumstances. What Happens when a Person Sees Something Bizarre, Like a UFO? asks Rich Reynolds, and suggests that visual perception is not a physical/biological process where an image is translated accurately to memory, but one affected by a person’s psychological make-up and even personality. Rich fleshes out his theme with appropriate quotes and useful links. Alejandro Rojas deals with the application of visualization techniques in UFO Sightings Visualization Competition Held by Data Crunchers. Included here are some rather nifty interactive “maps,” “infographics,” or “vizs.” Follow the instructions under each of the two dataset “vizs” to test them and their limits. Rojas also has thoughts on those limitations and presents his own way of looking at such data. (WM)